A man is pulled from the Johnson River in Kerala’s Wayanad district, in Kerala’s mountainous Western Ghat region. At night, a group of young men sit around a fire, drinking, and ponder how the dead man got into the river. Murder, suggests one, but Johnny (Basil Paulose) says that couldn’t…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on November 11, 2011. Late one evening, businessman Chirammal Enashu Francis (AKA Pranchiyettan, as per the film’s title) makes a visit to the churchyard, first, to “visit” with his ancestors (whom he claims later to be able to actually see). Pranchiyettan needs their…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on January 5, 2012. A landscape, a house, a Koran, a suitcase, an umbrella, some perfume bottles, and a picture of Mecca hung on the wall. From the opening frames of Adaminte Makan Abu, director/writer Salim Ahmed draws us in to the world of…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on August 1, 2014. On the busy day of a celebratory function in an apartment building, nine people end up stuck in the building’s elevator. All of them are, in some way, connected with a mysterious woman (Meghna Raj), who ends up dead…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on November 17, 2017. This post is part of the It Takes a Thief blogathon organized by Moon in Gemini (and fair warning, it’s also a bit spoilery). Be sure to check out all the entries! Marti (Chemban Vinod Jose) arrives at a church in…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on August 18, 2019. I was living in France when Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain was released – I’d lived there just long enough that I could cope with the film without subtitles, but also just long enough that I was still feeling kind of…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 4, 2019. Fans of director Lijo Jose Pellissery (LJP) were delighted to finally see one of his films turn up at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) – and a recent article in the Toronto Star devoted to “buzz picks” for this…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on September 7, 2019. The first part of this overview of Lijo Jose Pellissery (LJP)’s films focussed on the director’s earlier work — in this installment, I look at LJP’s three most recent films, starting with the very strange (and sometimes quite wonderful) Double…
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This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on October 27, 2019. Ittymaani: Made in China gets its title from the fact that its protagonist (Mohanlal) is named Ittymaani and he was, well, literally “made in China”, born there to Ittymathan (also Mohanlal) and his wife Theyyamma (Madhuri Braganza as young Theyyamma,…
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